My parents bought one when I was in high school. I was so mad about it. Thought it was a huge waste of money.
Fast forward many years. I was right. Every year you have mandatory maintenance costs (like paying a subscription to keep something you supposedly own). The next part of the scam is that there are tiers of ownership; pay even more to get in a higher tier. Higher tiers get more “points” for booking rooms, and let you book rooms further in advance (12mo out instead of 11mo). If you don’t upgrade, all the rooms you want are booked by the tier above you.
On the bright side, my dad is usually able to book rooms on big holidays, and then sell them for cash to cover the cost of maintenance fees. But the time share organization is aware of this practice and is trying to crack down on it, which seems like a breach of contract to me, even within their own scam.
Meanwhile, any time I travel, we just get an airbnb or vrbo and it’s always at least 3x nicer for a similar cost, and I’m not on the hook for a bunch of debt and responsibility.